Tougas- Voice Overview- 10/5

 My voice lessons this week were really deep into the anatomy of the voice and psychology of singing. We started with exercises where I did sirens and drones to raise my larynx, however immediately after we did some psychological exercises where I thought a fifth above the highest I was supposed to sing in a descending scale in order to stretch my range. It made me consider how the two function together and why we are studying McCoy so deeply. I think it’s because it allows us to invent and discover new ways to shape, change, and create the voice. This then helped us work through my song “Love” by Thomas Lodge and mostly only worked on two measures for the duration of the lesson where I hit a high F and G. To do this, we mapped through breathing for the note, not letting the ribs retract too quickly, and singing down the octave till it had enough ring. All of these vocal warmups and exercises (both anatomical and psychological) really helped me find the exact balance I needed to have pure, clean high notes for my songs!

In Voice Recital Hour, Carissa performed Summertime from Porgy and Bess. She started with it up the octave and stuck the high note clear and bright. You can tell she really was thinking for the high notes in the piece as they came out pure!  Also the breath support was incredible throughout. She really breathed down and back into her ribs and this was especially evident when she had a step-way slide between octaves. The low notes while supported could have had more resonance as the soft palate stayed raised high. To return to the psychological point I discussed earlier, my vocal teacher discusses is how if you imagine your low notes as high notes, you are more likely to stay in that raised space and achieve more ring. Something else that I loved was the great mix of glottal onset and aspirate. The notes weren’t forced but little to no breath escaped at the start of notes even at the start of words that began with h or s. Great job Carissa!

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